A letter from Bishop Slattery - Countering with Prayer the proposed Black Mass in Oklahoma City

A letter from Bishop SlatteryCountering with Prayer the proposed Black Mass in Oklahoma City

My Dear People:

As has been widely reported, a Satanic Black Mass has been scheduled for September 21 in Oklahoma City’s Civic Center. As a part of Satanic worship, a Black Mass attempts to invert the action and meaning of the Eucharist in order to mock Christ’s sacrifice and worship Satan through an orgiastic ritual of pain and perversion. It blasphemes everything which we hold as sacred and redemptive; and the spiritual dangers it poses ought not be dismissed. Since the Civic Center has not responded positively to the pleas of the Archbishop of Oklahoma City not to host this event in a tax-payer supported public venue, I am asking the faithful Catholics in the Diocese of Tulsa to fight this blasphemy through prayer and fasting:

Please keep the nine days prior to the Feast of the Assumption as an extraordinary period of prayer and penance. I am asking every Catholic to abstain from all meat and meat products from August 6 through the 14th. I am also asking that you consecrate your hunger with a daily recitation of a decade of the rosary and the familiar Prayer to Saint Michael. Printed copies of these prayers are available in the bulletin and at the entrances of the church. Be strong and encourage your friends to also be strong.

On Assumption Day, August 15th, we will ask Our Lady on her Feast, to intercede for us and protect us. On that day I in the Cathedral, and every priest in his own parish, will pray a special prayer written by Pope Leo XIII for the defense of the Church against the attack of the Enemy and his apostate angels.

Should these prayers and this period of fasting not effect the cancellation of this event, then I will ask every priest in the Diocese to conduct a Eucharistic Holy Hour on September 21 at the same time (7:00 p.m.) as this profanity is being celebrated in Oklahoma City. Wherever possible, I ask that Eucharistic Processions - especially outdoor processions - be arranged as part of these holy hours. Let us give a public witness to our faith in the Eucharist which is being so profoundly mocked and ridiculed by this event.

From the snares of the devil, deliver us, O Lord!

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Most Rev. Edward J. Slattery
Bishop of Tulsa

To download and/or print this letter and the bulletin announcement in PDF format, click HERE.

To download and/or print the letter to the priests from Bishop Slattery which includes both the Novena prayers and the "Leonine Prayers" from the 1962 Rite of Exorcism, click HERE.